Slow ambulances put thousands of lives in danger every MONTH

LIVES could be routinely at risk because ambulances are failing to reach the sickest patients quickly enough, it was claimed yesterday.

Large swathes of the British population are being left without adequate emergency healthcare

Well over 3,000 heart attack patients and other critically ill people a month since May have waited longer than the target eight minutes for expert help to arrive, NHS England figures show.

Ambulance trusts have a target of responding to 75 per cent of “Category A” - serious incident - calls within eight minutes.

But since May they have done so in only between 70.8 and 73.3 per cent of the most life-threatening “Red 1” cases - such as cardiac arrest patients who are not breathing and have no pulse.

Between 3,221 and 3,874 of these cases a month have waited more than eight minutes for a response to the 999 call, a total of 21,196 over the May to October period.

For “Red 2” calls, such as strokes and fits which are serious but less immediately time critical, the 75 per cent target has not been met since January and as many as 77,764 cases a month have waited longer than eight minutes for salvation.

The figures were highlighted by Labour after suggestions the target response time to some Red 2 cases could be extended to 19 minutes.

For people who’ve suffered cardiac arrest or a stroke, every second counts

Andy Burnham

As we reported yesterday, the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, which has submitted the plan for official approval, insists it would be safe and would help patients and staff “who have been concerned for some time that we continue to try and reach many patients in eight minutes when it is not clinically required”.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “The NHS is busier than ever, which is why we’ve given it an

extra £700 million this winter for more doctors, nurses and beds.

“This includes £50 million for more paramedics, 999 call handlers and other resources to support ambulance services.

“The NHS has ensured there are plans in every area to manage extra demand.”

An NHS England spokesman said: “Every day, ambulance services around the country do a brilliant job to ensure that the most serious cases receive the urgent care they need as quickly as possible, ultimately saving thousands of lives every year.

“This is why we have invested extra £48 million in order to increase the numbers of paramedics and experienced emergency call handlers, upgrading and expanding ambulance fleets and providing extra training for staff.

“We also recognise the need for more fundamental changes in order to ensure that the emergency care system works more efficiently and is able to respond to increasing demand.

“We are therefore carrying out an urgent care review to ensure that all our frontline services receive the resources they need and that we have the most efficient and resilient systems in place to support them.”